Rain gutters are widely installed along the rooftop eaves of millions of homes and sloped-roof buildings in North America, Europe, and other parts of the world. These rain gutters serve an important role in properly channeling water runoff to appropriate destinations such as storm water mains or drainage ponds. By diverting roof runoff away from the walls of a building, rain gutters also reduce structural damage that would otherwise be caused by the flow of rainwater onto the walls. In addition to rainwater, substantial amounts of debris (such as leaves, tree branches, silt runoff from roof shingles, and the like) tend to accumulate in rain gutters over time, which can eventually constrict or prevent any rainwater from flowing properly.
Various tools have been described for facilitating rain gutter cleaning. For example, U.S. Pre-grant Appln. Pub. 2006/0289036 (incorporated herein by reference) relates to an elongated pole that emits compressed gas to blow leaves out of a gutter. Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,471,271 (incorporated herein by reference) relates to a mechanical device, also including an elongated pole, in which a pair of tongs mounted at the end of the pole are opened and closed by pulling a rope to thrash debris out of a gutter.
However, the manual tools set forth in those documents can cause the user to fatigue his or her arms from holding heavy poles up as high as twenty feet overhead when attempting to remove debris from a gutter. For example, the user must raise the manual gutter cleaning tool up to the rain gutter and keep it raised for the duration of the cleaning. Furthermore, it may not be possible for the user to ascertain whether any residual matted debris remains in the gutter after attempting a removal, because the rain gutter is typically too high above the user for any visual inspection to be feasible.